David’s words keep ringing in my ears, even days later. I know he can’t fire me, even if he wants to. The contract we signed means my job’s safe for a long time, and I can’t imagine David would fire me out of spite.

Still… I know a lot rides on this project. Even Sven seems a little worried, constantly peppering me with questions about all the different ethical conundrums we’ve been working through.

“But what if,” he says to me one day over coffee, “the car cannot stop. What if the choice is you or a baby in road. Which then?”

I sigh. “We’re not assigning value on people.”

“Do people not get choice? I choose death for baby to live.”

“You don’t get a choice, unfortunately. The decision would have to be made too quickly. People don’t have time to think of that.”

“Yes, yes, so we make choice for them. We choose driver.”

“We choose driver,” I echo. “Otherwise, people aren’t going to want to drive in these cars. Would you want to be in a car that’ll choose someone else’s life over your own and you can’t do a thing to stop it?”

He hesitates a second. “When put that way, nyet.”

I laugh a little. “Yeah, me neither.”

He sighs, stretching, and I realize that I’ve never seen him wear the same track suit twice. He has to have hundreds of those things. Maybe even thousands, although I haven’t been here that long. Maybe he’ll run out eventually.

I actually enjoy this little morning ritual with him. We have coffee, talk through some things, and then go about the day. If we need to make new plans, we make them. He’s amazingly efficient.

And the team’s responding, at least these past few days. They’re stepping up and we’re tearing through the commits like crazy. Each new task is assigned and finished by the deadline, which is like basically unheard of in this job.

“What then, in end, we always choose driver? Not ethical, you ask me.”

I sigh. “It’s not that simple. We’ll build some leeway into the models. For example, if it’s a choice between the driver or ten people, the algos might choose the ten people.”

“Interesting. So what number do you say, then? Driver is worth ten, but not nine?”

“We’ll rely on the machine learning for that,” I say. “It’ll model the likelihood of everyone surviving, and it’ll make choices.”

His face darkens a bit. “We let robot make human choice then.”

“We can’t do it fast enough,” I point out again. I feel like we’re having this conversation every day.

“Yes, yes, I know. Still worry, no?”

“I worry about it too,” I say softly. “It’s why I’m here. We’re going to try and make this as fair as possible.”

“Fair for who?” He sighs but at least he changes the subject.

Still, Sven keeps me on my toes. I keep finding myself staying late, making little tweaks here and there, and even reading some of my favorite ethical philosophers. I’m so engaged with my work that it takes ten days before I realize that I haven’t seen David at all.

Olivia startles me one afternoon. She taps me on the shoulder while I’m in the middle of an hour-long programming binge session. I look up, eyes bleary, and she smiles at me with those perfect little teeth.

“Emma?” she asks. “May I speak with you?”

I nod, a little dumbfounded. “Yeah, sure.” I stand up and I can feel the team watching as we walk away together.

We step into an unused conference room and Olivia shuts the door behind her. “I’m sure you’re wondering why you haven’t seen David lately,” She says to me.

I blink, surprised. “Uh, he’s the CEO. He doesn’t have time for me.”

She rolls her eyes. “Right. Is that how you’re playing this?”

I hesitate. “Do… do you know?”

“Of course I know, Emma.”

I groan. How the hell could he tell Olivia? I’m so embarrassed I want to die, but she’s not looking at me like she’s judging me. She just looks annoyed that we’re going over this.

“It was his idea,” I say to her quickly. I want her to respect me so badly, it feels almost strange. “I mean, I didn’t argue, and I know it’s strange. But what would you do, in my position?”

“The same thing,” she says, shrugging.

“It’s just sex,” I say, sighing and sinking down into a chair.

She doesn’t say anything and I finally look up to meet her gaze. I expect her to look stern, but instead she’s totally shocked, her mouth hanging open.

“What?” I ask.

“David’s… he’s forcing you to have sex with him?”

I blink. “Forcing? What? No, it’s a part of the contract. I mean, I can’t get pregnant if we don’t have sex.”

She sinks down into a chair, her face even whiter than usual, and I realize that I’ve made a big mistake.

“Get you pregnant?” she repeats. “Contract? Holy shit.”

“You don’t know,” I say softly.

“I knew something was going on, so I bluffed. I mean, I figured it was something weird, it always is with David, but… holy shit.” She looks at me, eyes wide. “Who else knows?”

“Nobody,” I say. “Nobody knows. Nobody needs to know.” I lean toward her. “Olivia, this is something we both agreed to.”

She takes a breath and lets it out. “What, exactly, does this contract stipulate?”

So I tell her everything. I leave out the parts where David and I have sex, but I explain to her what the contract means and what it says. She’s completely blown away by the time I’m done.

“He wants a family,” she says softly, laughing a little bit. “Never would have guessed that.”

“He doesn’t seem like the type, does he?” I shrug a little. “But I’m a single mom and I can’t turn away from money like this, let alone the job security.”

She laughs at that. “I can’t blame you. I mean, David’s unconventional, but this… well, anyway. I came down to ask you why he’s been so distracted and why he’s paying so much attention to you, but I guess I know now.”

I groan a little. “I gave it up pretty easily.”

“Don’t feel bad, Emma. You had no choice.” She grins at me, some of her icy exterior melting away. “I’m good at what I do.”

“I haven’t even seen him for a while,” I say. “I mean, like over a week.”

She nods. “I’m not surprised. I’ve been keeping him in check, but I know he’s still thinking about you.”

“Really?” I ask, feeling like a little girl.

Olivia’s eyes narrow. “Does it matter? This contract is just for money for you, right?”

I take a breath and calm myself. “Of course,” I say, and I know it’s a lie as soon as I say it.

She watches me carefully and finally shakes her head. “I guess I should come clean. David sent me down here to check up on you.”

“Why doesn’t he check himself?”

“Because I won’t let him.” She sighs and stands. “We need to launch the Mark 2, Emma, and it’s behind schedule. Your new project is setting us back even more. I need him focused.”

“I can understand that.”

“But this is a new development,” she says, talking to herself now as she paces across the room. “This contract is strange, but maybe…” She trails off, pursing her lips.

When she turns to me, her icy exterior is back. She morphs back into the serious business bitch in seconds as she nods to herself.

“You’ll see David tonight,” she says. “He has a new toy I bet he’s dying to show off, and maybe if he blows off some steam…” She trails off, and shrugs.

“Are you, uh… whoring me out?”

She grins. “No, honey, you did that to yourself.”

I sit there, eyes wide, as Olivia laughs. I’m pissed but I also can’t really disagree with her. She’s right, I whored myself out for money… but god, I did it to David Carlson, and it’s been totally worth it.

“Tonight,” she repeats. “Do you know where he lives?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“I’ll email you the address. Show up at his place around eight. You can do the rest.”

“By the rest, you mean… fuck him.”

“Yes. Well, no, I just want you to make him happy. He’s been so distracted lately…” She trails off again and laughs.

“This is really weird, you know that? I mean, I don’t have to listen to you.” I cross my arms, feeling annoyed by the way she’s treating me.

“You don’t,” she agrees. “But you will. Because you know I have the company’s best interests at heart, and by extension, your own.”

I bite back a retort and just shake my head. “Can I trust you?”

“Probably.” She shrugs. “Who knows? You work with what you got.” She walks over to the door. “Tonight at eight. I’ll email you the address. Don’t forget.”

She leaves, letting the door shut behind her. I sit there, totally blown away.

How the hell did that just happen? She completely tricked me, and now I feel like she somehow owns me, like I have to do what she says. Except David’s the only one I really need to listen to.

I groan and put my head in my arms on the conference room table. I want to scream but instead I just hold it in. I’m screwed in so many different ways, and now Olivia is going to make it even worse. I can’t tell David that she knows or else he might get angry. I can’t risk pissing him off, not right now, not with how everything is.

“I’m such an idiot,” I mumble to myself.

“Uh, excuse me?”

My head snaps up. A group of five people are standing in the doorway, holding laptops.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

“No worries,” the guy that spoke says. “We just have this room.”

“Yeah, right, sure. Have a great meeting!”

I run the hell out of there, feeling like a moron. Back at my desk, an email from Olivia is already waiting for me, and I know what it says.

And I know I’m going to do what she wants.